What Celum's CEO Thinks About MarTech, E-Commerce, Retail

If brands want to reach their target customers, perhaps they should pull up a chair with Michael Kräftner to see the errors of their ways.

As Kräftner told his audience at Celumium — a presentation that his company, Celum (pronounced SELL-‘em) hosted in Chicago last week — a customer has to recognize a brand 17 times before he or she remembers it.

Now think of all the 27 million pieces of content, including images, words and jargon, that are shared each day and seen by customers (a statistic Kräftner shared during his presentation) — and you get the feeling that information overload is as much of the problem as brand consistency.

Connect with Me

In fact, the path to purchase can be shortened and even improved by giving store staffs the necessary materials they need to convert customer conversations into real sales. Kräftner contends that his company brings “content to life” by providing the framework to connect the dots between all of a brand’s assets so that it can tell its story more effectively.

When you look past the sales presentation and you start thinking about how his company’s technology can be applied, you realize that this is one of the key issues holding back today’s retailers — especially those who are looking at this holiday season to drive revenues through the door. We customers don’t just want to be sold a bill of goods. We want to connect with that bill of goods and find the shortest possible path to reach it.

Could a salesperson’s education make a huge difference to a retailer’s bottom line, as Kräftner suggests his tech can help deliver? Maybe, depending on the product category. I could see this being an issue for luxe brands or products with high amounts of specifications.

But when I heard another statistic in his presentation — he really provided a lot of stats in his presentation — that 55 percent of customers fall in love with a brand because of easy access to information around products, I realized that content marketing and digital assets can do more than just help the customer.

It can help everyone associated with the product being sold. More information in the supply chain makes everyone smarter, leading to more informed purchases and the ability to build brand loyalty.

Beyond the Technology

“Great user experience is achieved when expectation is met,” Kräftner suggested. I could not agree with him more.

The experience has just as much to do with the customer as it does the technology provider, and there needs to be harmony for everyone involved in the customer’s shopping experience. In listening to what I thought was going to be another technology sell, I heard another message — it’s time for brands to dig deeper into their supply chains and recognize the power that every player has in creating a succinct brand experience.

So here’s hoping that retailers can do some quick studying on what their customers really want, and keep an eye on Celum — and other stats from Michael Kräftner. We all might just learn a few things.

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